Microscopic crystals extracted from meteorites could help settle a debate about the birth of our patch of the Milky Way.
About 4.6 billion years ago, the Solar System formed from a cloud of dust and gas collapsing in on itself due to gravity. The Sun, planets, and eventually Earth formed out of the cloud. But when did ...
A small, round piece of asteroid Ryugu (sample #91), called “S-lunar,” contains tiny particles (less than 1 mm) that will allow planetary scientists to study the magnetic signature of the early solar ...
Comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object ever detected passing through our solar system, carries a chemical signature that does not match what astronomers typically see in comets born ...
Protoplanetary disk. Figure from a computer simulation visualizing the formation of planets (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12278 ). Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech. August 22, 2024, Mountain View, CA - An ...
A new paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society argues the simplest answer may work: contact binaries like Arrokoth can form directly during the gravitational collapse of a dense ...
The workings of our solar system are roughly the same now as they have been for millions of years. Moons circle their planets, the planets circle the sun, the sun’s magnetic fields and sunspots wax ...
The Gaia telescope spotted more than 6,000 sunlike stars, all of which appear to have migrated from the galaxy's center more than 4 billion years ago.